I'm back to playing LW2 for version 1.5. And I'm thinking about how things have changed and what I should do for my strategic decisions. In this case about Grenadier builds.

So my questions about my most common build, a hybrid. There is some interaction between these choices. Here's what I think I'll go with, subject to hashing out the following questions in greater detail. EDIT2: I also talk about two common alternates, the Gunsmoke and the Sapper. And mention the Flashbanger, which is more limited.

Planned to use a mix of Frag/Fire/Plasma grenades and Flashbangs, especially Flashbangs and Fire Grenades later on.

After Bluescreen Bombs and before Full Kit, Hybrid Grenadier's 2 Flashbangs should be focused on robots if possible.

EDIT: HEAT Warheads doesn't help Fire Grenades and may only improve Frag/Plasma Grenades. Likely Tandem Warheads would be the better choice, even with grenades from Specialists using Airdrop. (And my Specialists don't pick Airdrop.)

EDIT: Thanks to gimrah and Psieye for drawing my attention to a dedicated Smoke/Primary Grenadier, including as an officer. Here's how I'd likely build one.

Planned to use just Frag/Plasma Grenades. If high-aim, can add in Chain Shot. GSgt perk more of a toss up for Sapper as environmental damage is strongest at the center of impact and benefits less from Volatile Mix. High-aim might go Salvo; Bombardier might be worth it.

If a dedicated Flashbanger with rarely Smoke, this build. Very specialized.

Don't consider Needle Grenades as ADVENT quickly becomes strong enough to rarely die from a grenade when at full health. And careful use of grenades can avoid destroying loot and corpses.

So how good is Sapper? Is it worth considering to improve demolition? Versus Rapid Deployment and being able every 4 turns to use a free support grenade attack without costing an Action Point? I'd previously gone with Rapid Deployment but I've heard Sapper has been improved.

Center Mass is third choice for most Grenadiers, because getting another grenade will be more important that improving primary weapon damage.

With the importance of Fire Grenades in the past and both Fire Grenades and Plasma Grenades being individual purchases, Heavy Ordnance is the choice to get them doubled right away. Even with the nerf to Fire Grenades, I'd still pick Heavy Ordnance for the same reason. And really only consider Protector for a near-complete Support Grenadier, which won't be an early choice for training. But is this still true? Is having more Flashbangs more important?

EDIT2: Heavy Ordnance for early doubling of Fire Grenades and other damage grenades. Protector only if the Grenadier will only use Flashbangs and Smoke. Rarely Center Mass if very heavy on Primary Weapon perks, but more likely one of the others.

3. Sgt: Bluescreen Bombs vs Formidable

Don't consider Boosted Cores as adding 1 damage to damage grenades doesn't seem as important to nearly all Grenadier builds as the two other choices.

Formidable could allow the Grenadier to forgo having a Plating for ablative hit points and have another grenade, two with Full Kit. But is Bluescreen Bombs significant enough against robotic enemies stunning and weakening them to hacking to make it a better choice for a hybrid build?

EDIT2: Formidable for a Gunsmoke Grenadier or others who carry no Flashbangs, but for my hybrid I'd go with Bluescreen Bombs to affect robots and help Specialists hack them.

4. SSgt: Tandem Warheads vs Dense Smoke vs HEAT Warheads

EDIT2: Reversed on this one. I'd go with Tandem Warheads for hybrid Grenadiers, Dense Smoke for Gunsmoke Grenadiers, and HEAT only for builds carrying just Frag/Plasma Grenades, like Sapper Grenadiers.

EDIT2 HEAT appears to benefit only Frag and Plasma Grenades, so it's a weak choice for most builds. Fire Grenades's fire damage already pierces all armour and never shreds (with only Technicals with Phosphorus damaging and shredding robots). Tandem Warheads is likely the better choice, even with Frag/Plasma Grenades from Specialists using Airdrop. (And my Specialist don't have Airdrop.)

Normally my other troops carry Smoke, not the Grenadiers. And making damaging grenades better in one way or another more likely to be a benefit. However, the Gunsmoke Grenadier only carries Smoke so that build picks Dense Smoke.

5. TSgt: Sting Grenades vs Chain Shot vs Biggest Booms

Chain Shot only for builds that don't carry Flashbangs for high-aim Grenadiers. Normally Grenadiers when selected are likely to be low-aim. And usually better to improve the grenades rather than the primary weapon.

I would take Sting Grenades over Biggest Booms. A 50% chance for +3 damage could cause up to 6 or more extra damage if a damage grenade is fired against a cluster of 4 ADVENT. But a 50% chance to stun ADVENT (even if robotics are excluded without Bluescreen Bombs) means in the same case likely 2 of 4 of those ADVENT are stunned and temporarily out of action, either allowing shots at them exposed or concentration on the ones not stunned.

Low-aim Sapper Grenadiers would go with Biggest Booms.

6. GSgt: Volatile Mix vs Salvo vs Bombardier

Bombardier is third choice as the upgraded Grenade Launcher should become available soon to provide the same function.

I would normally pick Volatile Mix to make every grenade better by being more likely to be aimed at more targets, especially for small AoE grenades. Salvo gives tactical flexibility, but that can be done by tactical planning. And Rapid Deployment, a likely choice, could give a similar benefit.

The Sapper Grenadier doesn't benefit as much from Volatile Mix, so perhaps Salvo or even Bombardier for them.

7. MSgt: Combat Engineer vs Full Kit vs Ghost Grenade

Closer to a 3-way race. But I think the choice depends on the previous build. Combat Engineer would be for a demolition build that would go with Sapper and focus on damage grenades. Ghost Grenade would be very situational and I'd only consider it for a Support Grenadier, not a Hybrid Grenadier. Full Kit gives the Grenadier 2 or maybe 3 more grenades, especially likely to be later ones that will get doubled for no additional cost. And Full Kit works for both damage and support grenade in the Utility Slots.

I'd likely go with Full Kit for the hybrid build. Combat Engineer only for the Sapper build.

Last edited by Jacke on Wed Sep 20, 2017 3:29 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I had two of these and they levelled quickly. It helped that my build order included a relatively early PG for incendiaries. Also both were high aim soldiers who decided to be grenadiers, so they carry rifles and shoot fairly often (at least OW and flanking). They carry flashbangs and incendiaries. I did not bring frags on them ever once incendiaries were available.

I had a 3rd (!) high aim grenadier who went RD -> CM -> Form -> Dense -> Chain. He's an officer with a rifle and a mix of smoke and flashbangs. Actually pretty handy on small squad missions where having multi-role soldiers is valuable and so are soldiers with 'burst' action economy: this guy can smoke/flash, hit Incoming, do some other officer action and shoot (twice) all in one turn. But it probably isn't as good as the other build.

Sapper will reliably destroy cover at the centre of the grenade blast but that's it. It's ok but it doesn't compare to RD IMO, which is awesome both in small fights when you have a small squad and action economy on key turns is all, and also is big fights so you can flash/smoke and burn something all in the same turn. However sapper also applies to heavy weapons so if you are planning on getting exo early that could be nice - I still wouldn't though.

Personally I find Formidable is superb in general and especially on grenadiers. I've taken it wherever available on all classes this campaign and it's really cut down on injuries. Also if you have multiple soldiers with Formidable in a squad and an officer, then you can control MECs very effectively by bunching up to bait missiles. On grenadiers, I want the extra HP because I don't have room for a vest, or you can leave off plating and have 4 slots for grenades and still have 2 ablative: doing that a MSGT in full kit is a viable choice even for a long mission like a big supply raid and is great on an avenger defence. Bluescreen is good but personally I found hacking too situational and unreliable to build around so I prefer Formidable - but others have a very different view on this.

I prefer tandem to HEAT. Unless I have air-drop my grenadiers won't be carrying frags/plasma and HEAT doesn't seem to work with incendiaries. Tandem doesn't do a lot but it's better than nothing and nice when you break concealment with an incendiary.

I agree chain shot is probably less attractive. BB is nice but even incendiaries are more about control than killing. Whereas sting grenades are incredible powerful: you can't rely on stunning any one enemy but if you open the turn by stinging 2-3 enemies, chances are you'll be able to ignore at least one for that turn.

VM all day at GSGT. It turn the incendiary AoE into a 3x3 grid. That often means you can burn a whole pod when you open from concealment. On a mid/late game troop column recently I decided to to break concealment against 11 enemies and a turret with my 5 man squad, because I could hit 6 of the rainbow pod with one incendiary. And then she got commanded to RD-sting and burn again in the same turn, leaving only a couple of enemies who weren't completely controlled for the others to clean up. Salvo is nice but VM is better. Bombardier would be nice but isn't necessary.

MSGT is interesting. Full kit can turn a grenadier into a long mission soldier, which I would say is well worth it with at least one of your grenadiers. Ghost grenade has obvious great utility - except it would be most valuable on long missions and without the other MSGT perks this soldier is a bit short on grenades for a long mission. Combat engineer apparently also works with heavy weapons, so shredder gun becomes cover annihilation. And by this stage in the game you will probably have plasma grenades and specialists with airdrop. So that could all add up to a pretty powerful toolbox and one that might also be viable on a long mission.

With Tandem warheads, you should destroy cover even outside of the area Center, right?In my experience, high cover usually never gets destroyed completely. Which is why I lost faith into specialized sapper Grenadiers.

Phaseless wrote:With Tandem warheads, you should destroy cover even outside of the area Center, right?In my experience, high cover usually never gets destroyed completely. Which is why I lost faith into specialized sapper Grenadiers.

Tandem does not affect environmental damage. It's stated in the extra tooltip under the question mark.

Phaseless wrote:With Tandem warheads, you should destroy cover even outside of the area Center, right?In my experience, high cover usually never gets destroyed completely. Which is why I lost faith into specialized sapper Grenadiers.

Tandem does not affect environmental damage. It's stated in the extra tooltip under the question mark.

Oh that's good to know, thanks! So you should Center your shot on the cover, since Units will get full damage anyway.

BB beside -25 hack resistance which will almost guarantee FO of MEC2 and below (one RR is usually enough to 100% consider you have Gremlin2 and SkullMining by that time) BB disables MEC misslies. Wthout missiles Archer of all kind is just a poor shooter (consider aim/mobility penalty). So BB turns MECs almost irrelevant for 1 turn which is extremely important with advanced ones as you most likely woun't be ablle to kill all of them in one turn (comand pod includes 2 MEC3 in 1.4 - not sure about 1.5 - I'm not at this stage yet).And with VM at GSGT you can usually disable most if not all MECs in the pod.So for me - BB is a clear winner.

Rapid Deployment and Dense Smoke is all I really care about on my mid-game grenadiers who bring 3 smokes, plating and vest. Even in 1.4 I didn't like giving them incendiaries as that's less smokes they can bring.

Noober wrote:BB beside -25 hack resistance which will almost guarantee FO of MEC2 and below (one RR is usually enough to 100% consider you have Gremlin2 and SkullMining by that time) BB disables MEC misslies. Wthout missiles Archer of all kind is just a poor shooter (consider aim/mobility penalty). So BB turns MECs almost irrelevant for 1 turn which is extremely important with advanced ones as you most likely woun't be ablle to kill all of them in one turn (comand pod includes 2 MEC3 in 1.4 - not sure about 1.5 - I'm not at this stage yet).And with VM at GSGT you can usually disable most if not all MECs in the pod.So for me - BB is a clear winner.

Some good arguments. I can confirm you do still get MEC balls in command pods in 1.5. Tbh I didn't find those too problematic in the mid game even without hacking because I often bring a rocket tech and several exo suits on those big supply raids and UFOs, so I have a lot of AoE and shred in the team. However, later on those super heavy MECs are no joke and you might have 2 of them in a MEC ball - although I've no idea whether you can realistically hack them.

So a lot of it depends on the rest of your squad: if you like hacker specs, you build around them, and you can be confident your grenadier will usually be with a hacker spec, then I could buy BB as an equal/better choice. Formidable is just always good and (missile-baiting aside) requires no building around.

Note if you plan to go psi I would recommend against hacker specs. They kind of do the same thing and you don't really have room for 2 support soldiers in a team. So if you go psi, make OW specs instead, which are awesome once they get going.

There is always one argument for hacking spec = MEC farm for havens.There are no thing like exces MECs in mid-late game standart full retals/invasions which I consider to be be among the most difficult missions in the game. Especially invasion - the only mission I always fear of no matter what the stage of the game.It completely trivialize randevouz as a side effect and doesn't help at all on intel raids (bug or intended?) but they are just so strong in those two mission type to ignore.

Noober wrote:There is always one argument for hacking spec = MEC farm for havens.There are no thing like exces MECs in mid-late game standart full retals/invasions which I consider to be be among the most difficult missions in the game. Especially invasion - the only mission I always fear of no matter what the stage of the game.It completely trivialize randevouz as a side effect and doesn't help at all on intel raids (bug or intended?) but they are just so strong in those two mission type to ignore.

Except... Master Enemy has pretty poor odds unless you really nerf the target's hack defence into the ground. And then you get a T1 MEC, which is pretty weak by the time you get to FO and invasions. Ordinary retals are rarely that hard for me, albeit very map dependent if it's the RNF one. The one time they would be useful would be on intel raids and they don't deploy on intel raids because reasons. They do trivialise rendezvous but then those aren't that hard to start with and you can just skip them in 1.5 if there are too many faceless for your remaining rebels.

I have to say invasions are one time a Spark really comes into its own. Bombard destroys cover and can be used anywhere a squadmate can see. So if the beacon is on a roof, that becomes easy. Or if, as in the one I did recently, the beacon is on the ground floor inside a building then it's still very helpful for opening up the wall to get LOS. It's also the kind of mission that turns into a brawl with enemies coming at you from multiple directions as you push forward - so having the Spark to tank is also nice. Sparks are also good on other retal types too, as most get scrappy, everything starts on alert, and the Spark's infiltration penalty doesn't matter.

I never try to FO a strong MEC for farming. My target is something like Archer1 as after BB and with good PCS it's 100%. If I had a BS round - MEC2 is the ideal as it can tank quite a lot.

I found out the power of mass M1 Mecs in my alternative retal (with drop every turn) in early-mid october.I desperetely needed to skull an officer to push a plot (my bad but oh well...) and this one dropped only in the first wave of 8.I would never accomplish the goal for that retal if not my 4 MECs. Yes it were M1 MECs but there were 4 of them!Needles to say no one survived but even at M1 they could tank a few shots and I ended up with only couple of wounds against like 25-30 of M3 ayys/advents.

I comletely agree with you about SPARK but it doesn't hurt to have a little bit of a huge support for him in this damn invasion... and I've never managed to unlock bombard before my first invasion (I don't want a spare resources to build it and in 1.1-1.4 I delaed the DLC mission until mag weapon to make a guarantee level up for my rangers with minimum risk).

Noober wrote:I never try to FO a strong MEC for farming. My target is something like Archer1 as after BB and with good PCS it's 100%. If I had a BS round - MEC2 is the ideal as it can tank quite a lot.

I found out the power of mass M1 Mecs in my alternative retal (with drop every turn) in early-mid october.I desperetely needed to skull an officer to push a plot (my bad but oh well...) and this one dropped only in the first wave of 8.I would never accomplish the goal for that retal if not my 4 MECs. Yes it were M1 MECs but there were 4 of them!Needles to say no one survived but even at M1 they could tank a few shots and I ended up with only couple of wounds against like 25-30 of M3 ayys/advents.

I comletely agree with you about SPARK but it doesn't hurt to have a little bit of a huge support for him in this damn invasion... and I've never managed to unlock bombard before my first invasion (I don't want a spare resources to build it and in 1.1-1.4 I delaed the DLC mission until mag weapon to make a guarantee level up for my rangers with minimum risk).

Re Sparks I play with the special mission off so I just built a Spark out of the PG in June/July and ranked him up with TBF officers. Invasion was early Sept IIRC. Tbh I'm not sure the Spark is really worth the resources but he's fun, the Julian voice is hilarious, and he's very handy for certain mission types.

Getting 4 MECs is quite something. Presumably some were from PoIs (which make me sad as most other PoIs are better). It's not that they are useless. It's just that I don't think they are good enough to build around. And if I had FO available I'd probably rather hijack an M2 MEC with the basic FO takeover option, than a low level MEC with Master Enemy. Also, invasions happen in liberated regions where there are no more missions to capture MECs, liberation is a mainly a mid game activity, and FO comes relatively late so it seems like you'd really have to push to capture MECs in a region you later liberate.

I find it very hard to keep my hacker specialists up to speed with Advent tech. By the time I get FO on anyone it's basically all M2s and Hunters - M1s and Archers are rare and minimal threat when they do appear. Similarly I never have drone wrecks for T2 gremlins until the first HQ. And then skullmining is expensive.

Intended. Flavour reason: on an intel raid, your rebels are sneaking in enemy territory so they don't bring Mecs which are kept for base defence. Ignore the fact Mecs have a stealth field.

Full Override Mecs are very nice to have on full retals.

gimrah wrote:by the time you get to FO

Depending on playstyle, FO can come out before M2 Mecs show up. An FO farming spree can shore up the first few regions which are probably getting hot in Advent Str and attracting full retals.

I know it's intended but... if a Spark can have concealment then a MEC can join rebels for protection. The model has graffiti on it after all, which is basically urban camo. I just find it sad they made this cool feature and art to go with it and its role in the game is so limited (for me at least).

I couldn't imagine getting to FO before M2s. I guess if you really prioritise bringing specialists even when they are not the optimal soldier to BRING (EDIT). So will just take your word for it and be pleased that viable playstyles can differ by that much!

Anyway, this has all gone very off-topic so apols. Grenadiers. Go bluescreen if you want.

gimrah wrote:I couldn't imagine getting to FO before M2s. I guess if you really prioritise bringing specialists even when they are not the optimal soldier to BRING (EDIT).

The 8-man GOp squad makes specialists always optimal to bring, for more XP per mission and more missions per month than 5-man GOp squads. Other classes get wounded, the specialists and snipers don't unless the GOp went FUBAR. 8-man GOps also have the potential to make a campaign go off a cliff from completely mundane missions. In short: Aid Protocol and smoke grenades are OP. Very exhausting for the player though so definitely not recommended for every GOp.

Thanks for all the interesting and insightful replies and discussion. Lots of things to consider. Details on interaction between builds, squad compositions, research, and proving ground projects.

Can anyone confirm that only Frag and Plasma Grenadier benefit from the two parts of HEAT Warheads: 2 Piercing and +1 Shredding ?

And are the heavy numbers of MECs seen in LW2 1.4 still present in 1.5?

I'm using Specialist Officers. They will have Field Surgeon. As would a 2nd Reaction/Medic Specialist. Field Surgeon stacks in effect to get wounded soldiers healed faster. And together they can perma Aid Protocol. Will discuss them in a Specialist topic but here's what I think the builds will be.

I'll have to reconsider Formidable on all soldier classes who can get it: Assaults, Grenadiers, Gunners, Technicals, Sparks. Synergy (for at least the human XCOM) with using Field Surgeon to heal faster by having less wounds.

And thanks to gimrah and Psieye for drawing my attention to a dedicated Smoke/Primary Grenadier, including as an officer. Here's how I'd likely build one.

Planned to use just Smoke Grenades. Definitely high aim. And would likely still go with Protector as having that extra Smoke Grenade.

As for using Bluescreen Bombs to better Haywire / Full Override robotic targets, I think that's still useful. ADVENT has a lot of robots. Will have to make sure the squad matches it with Redscreen Rounds.

Volatile mix is very good, and I used to take it on every grenadier, but I've since switched to Salvo, which I think is overall stronger, especially if you take fullkit at MSGT. The idea behind salvo is that you can sting or incendiary a lot more enemies with two smaller radius grenades, than with one big one. That's it. When shit hits the fan, you can CC far more enemies with Salvo than with Volatile.

stefan3iii wrote:Volatile mix is very good, and I used to take it on every grenadier, but I've since switched to Salvo, which I think is overall stronger, especially if you take fullkit at MSGT. The idea behind salvo is that you can sting or incendiary a lot more enemies with two smaller radius grenades, than with one big one. That's it. When shit hits the fan, you can CC far more enemies with Salvo than with Volatile.

I can see Salvo being useful in the hopefully rare case of having to fire double grenades for 2 or more turns in quick succession. However, that'll burn half or more of Full Kits' grenade load. 3 or definitely 4 turns of that and all the Grenades are gone. Can work in a short battle.

Rapid Deployment allows similar double shot every few turns, which may be sufficient if the battle is better controlled. If attacking from concealment, after the first grenade those enemy not stunned by Sting Grenades will spread out. Against activated enemy, it will be harder to get multiple hits with the 2nd grenade without Volatile Mix.

Volatile Mix makes each grenade more likely to be able to hit more targets and have its damaged multiplied more. Even with Full Kit, it'll usually be better for each grenade to tend to do more.

I think fire grenade benefits from HEAT in terms of armor piercing though not sure. No shred unfortunately...Late game almost everyone and their dogs has at least 1 armor and many - 2 and above.I always pick HEAT at SSGT but as far as you use flash-fire hybrid (the best on Legend IMO) the pick really doesn't matter as all of perks at SSGT are just so terrible for this build.My favorite is:RD (!!!) - HO (might as well be Protector with 1.5 fire grenade) - BB (!!) - any (HEAT) - Sting (!!!) - VM - FK

The cornerstones are RD, BB and Sting. Take into account that Sting and BB are unavailable for other classes through AWC.

HO/Protector VM/Salvo and FK/CE are discussable and heavily depends on the play style. I prefer to use my technics in EXO for cover destrution but others use CE grenadiers in EXO to do the same (CE is MSGT skill and technics at MSGT are a lot better in anti-cover job). There is also an option to use anyone who have rolled sapper in AWC in EXO for some anti-cover job - don't know if it's effective because of inv damage falls.

Fire grenades are still really good in 1.5. 75% burn chance is still pretty decent, and if you don't burn outright you'll probably burn the tile so he'll still burn if you make him move. And they still do enough damage to kill M2s often.

Ultimately flashbangs are free and not of equivalent strength to incendiaries until you get sting grenades at TSGT. So unless you get PG really late then HO will provide you with a lot of value, because you won't have enough officer corpses early to build as many incendiaries as you want otherwise.

Has anyone ever tried EMP on grenadiers in the late game? I was wondering if it might be good against MEC balls on UFOs / supply raids given the shutdown chance.

I'm in a mid-late game and mostly use 2 builds so far, both became more or less the same in the end.

Sapper: Sapper - Heavy Ordinance - Bluescreen Bombs - HEAT Warheads - Sting Grenades - Volatile Mix - Full Kit. Usually goes with Fire and Flash in utility slot and Plasma in grenade slot. Sometimes I remove plating for one more Plasma or Fire grenade. Still have 2 flashbang skills and a Flashbang as they are too valuable in my oppnioin to ignore.

So the idea is that both builds end up with ways to both disorient/stun and destroy covers. Fire grenades are still good, but less reliable and sometimes it's just better to strip enemy from cover and finish them off.